The Trip Home

It is time to bring this trip to an end.  Since we had no wifi during our travels, I am writing this a couple days late.

We left Tonopah on Monday morning, the 22nd.  We drove all day. The roads were snowy and icy as we travel through Austin, NV on the way to our campsite.  We spent the night at Water Canyon Recreation area, near Winnemucca, NV.  It is in the foothills above the city.  During the night, it snowed and got very cold.  In the morning, we were greeted to this scene.  There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground and the dirt road was solid ice.  Fortunately, it was a dirt road, so as we drove over it when leaving, the tires crunched through the ice to the dirt below.  We did not slide around.  When we got out of the foothills and into town, the roads were OK.

Winnemucca in the Morning

On Tuesday we left Winnemucca and again drove all day until we got to our 2nd campground near Burns, Or.,  Chickahominey Reservoir.  What a difference in the view.  The picture below was taken Tuesday night.  So we started out with ice and snow and ended up with a beautiful sunset.

Chickahominey

We got up Wednesday morning and finished our trip home.  Our route led us along Hwy 26 though Government Camp on Mt. Hood.  It was snowing pretty hard on Mt Hood and driving was a little bit scary.  This is the most dangerous road in Oregon.  It is a nice road but very busy and people drive crazy not paying attention to the conditions. 

One amazing thing to note is that while we were camped in Tonopah, we were at 6,047 feet elevation. Government Camp is only 3,888 feet.  Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood is only 5,942.  So we were camped all week higher than either.  It didn't seem like it.  Maybe that explains why we got so cold at night.  When we drove through Austin, NV the elevation at the peak of the highway was 7,500.

Arrived home about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon.  The new Jeep did OK but it sure cannot pull up the mountains like our old diesel could.